On this day in military history...

• 1944 - Exercise Tiger Disaster: German torpedo boats sank two American tank landing ships (LST-507 and LST-531) and damaged LST-289, resulting in the deaths of 749 soldiers.
• 1970 - President Richard Nixon gives his formal authorisation to commit U.S. combat troops, in cooperation with South Vietnamese units, against communist troop sanctuaries in Cambodia.
• 1945 – Nazi Germany carries out its final use of gas chambers to execute 33 upper Austrian socialist and communist leaders in Mauthausen Concentration Camp.